The World is Ever Turning
by Mystikwriter
Summary: Viral reached up and traced the line of Simon's cheek with a claw. "You haven't aged since the day you left."


The sky spread out above him, a thin veneer that held back the vast emptiness of space. Even after all this time he couldn't help marveling at it. Yeas of living beneath crushing rock, scraping and digging for every scrap of space, and now his world stretched for as far as the eye could see, and beyond.

The wind tugged at his cloak, the faint scrape of footsteps lingering beneath the soft hiss of fabric sliding together. Simon didn't turn, kept watching the open sky with Kamina's sword by his side. Kamina's cloak was long gone, torn away by wind and time gone by. The sword remained, buried deep into the earth.

"I didn't think I would ever see you again."

Simon smiled at the familiar voice, time having done little to smooth away the echo of a growl. "It's been a long time, Viral."

The footsteps approached, moving to the far side of Kamina's sword before stopping. The hood of his cloak made it impossible to see Viral's face. He caught a glimpse of a bright red cloak trailing the breeze.

"Everyone wonders about you from time to time. They don't say it out loud anymore, but by now I can recognize the expression." Simon didn't need to turn to know that Viral was scowling at him. "Is there a reason you haven't let anyone know you're still alive?"

"They don't need me anymore."

The wind was cool against Simon's face and he could sense the course of it through the air. Puffs of air that curved into the tenuous curl of a spiral, the motion never finished but the intent there, buried in the current and the specks of matter it bore. Simon ignored it, and the whisper faint curve that lingered in the grass beneath him.

"Maybe not. But not everything is about need."

Simon smiled again. Viral may have been stuck in a body that would not feel the passage of time, but chance had come none the less. "I don't belong in their world. My part is done now. It's up to them to decide what happens next."

"And what about you? What's your new purpose in a world that doesn't need you anymore?" The words weren't bitter, but Simon imagined it wouldn't take much to push them over the line.

"To watch."

The grass crunched beside him, but Simon didn't look up at Viral. He kept his eyes on the distant horizon, the vivid blue bleeding into the darker purple and lighter yellows as the sun slipped behind the distant mountains.

"She wouldn't want this for you, Simon." There was a something sharp lurking beneath the calm at Simon's back, as if the words couldn't slide past fangs without developing edges of their own. "I didn't know her very well, but she was too sweet to ever want this life for you."

"I know," Simon said quietly. "But this is the way things have to be."

A fist curled into his cloak and jerked him off the ground, a gasp slipping out as his feet left the ground. He dug his fingers into Viral's forearms. At one point Viral had removed the ever present bandages, no doubt comfortable being beast among men by now.

"Why are you doing this?" Viral hissed. "Why do you have to be alone? I may be a Beast-Man but even I know that Man-Apes aren't supposed to live like this!"

The cloak's hood continued to shield his face from Viral's frustration. All he had to do was tilt his head back and his secret would be out. It was tempting, a traitorous ache that carved through his chest until every breath was tight and just this side of pain.

If it had been anyone else to find him, Simon would never have been able to do it. But he knew Viral would understand. Trapped in a body that would not die and a bond forged with blood and hate before mutual respect hammered out the hate into something warmer, softening the edges.

It was an easy thing to let his hood slide back to pool across the back of his shoulders.

Viral's eyes widened and he released his hold on Simon's cloak. "Simon? What is this?"

Simon smiled, a curve of lips that was too tired to reach his eyes. "I didn't realize what was happening at first. I left because I truly believed the world had no place for me, that I had done my part. It was a couple months after I left that I realized I could feel the spiral power in the world around me." He closed his eyes, his shoulders drooping. "That I could manipulate it."

Viral reached up and traced the line of Simon's cheek with a claw. "You haven't aged since the day you left."

"A side effect of finding Lagann."

Viral's eyes were mere slits, weighing Simon's words and the implications that spiraled out around them. "Will this happen to anyone who holds the pendant?"

"No. The pendant woke what was already there, and my battle against the Anti-Spiral sealed the deal." Simon licked his lips, dry and chapped against his tongue. Where all the life he came across overflowed with Spiral energy, it wasn't what he felt coursing through his own veins. Where every person was a river, Simon was an ocean, the power richer, deeper, thicker were it pressed against his skin.

Viral released his hold on Simon's cloak and took a cautious step back. "Like Lordgenome?"

Simon shook his head. "Yes and no. I remember what he felt like, before he died and while it is similar, it is not the same."

Lordgenome had burned in his eyes, moments before he died. Looking at him had made every heartbeat echo in his chest, had made Simon infinitely aware of the invisible lines of space, curving forever more into nothingness. Spiral power formed the foundation of life, the universe, and the Anti-Spirals had thought they could crush it. They'd never stood a chance.

Viral relaxed, and Simon couldn't tell if it had been fear or the remnants of his devotion to his dead lord that had forced him to ask. Maybe both.

"You wouldn't need the pendant to operate Lagann, would you?" Viral asked.

"No. I can operate any Gunman if I need to and alter them as well." He'd had to know. He'd snuck into a garbage field where broken Gunmen had been stored. The machine had responded almost eagerly once he was inside the cockpit, twisted metal and loose wires melding and reshaping beneath his power until it formed the shape that lay at his core. The appearance of Gurren-Lagann in the garbage heap had brought the nearest villagers running, and him fleeing into the desert. The Gunman had reverted back the moment he left the cockpit.

"I knew a simple Man-ape couldn't be that stubborn." Viral examined him from head to toe, taking in the differences, and what had remained the same. "Kamina was loud and flashy and a pain in the ass, and all the chaos kept you hidden." Viral's eyes were unreadable, the sunlight flashing on the slit pupils. "Who knows what would have happened if he hadn't given you the time to grow into what you are now."

The words hurt, a familiar ache that flared whenever someone brought up Kamina. It was true. Kamina had seen something in him, something that lead him to drag a pint sized little twerp after him on every adventure, even to the very sky.

"This changes things, Simon."

Simon glared. "I'm not going back. If people knew what I could do now-" He shook his head. "I won't let them go down that path, not after everything we went through to choose this one."

He hadn't tested it, not wanting to cross that line, to confirm the truth he didn't want to believe. But he knew it in his bones that if he had to, he could bring a Spiral life form back to life.

"If you wish, but have you considered that maybe I don't want to be alone?"

The question threw him, stopped him cold like a punch to the face. He twisted around and stared at Viral. "What?"

"It's all well and good for you to wander the land, but would it kill you to let me find you once in a while?" Viral's mouth twisted. "You're not the only one who has a long future ahead of them."

Simon considered that and the endless future stretching out before him.

"I guess I can do that."

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